Why would Maureen Paton settle for someone her own age when she can
take her pick of gallant, worldly and thoughtful types?

I don’t know of anyone who has not been profoundly influenced by their upbringing, especially when it comes to choosing a mate. However much we might like to think that nature trumps nurture in the end, that we’re the masters of our fate, those early influences track us remorselessly throughout our entire lives.

I got lucky with mine. My biological father had abandoned my mother when she became pregnant with me, so my only father figure in my childhood was a very wise old manwhom I called Uncle. It didn’t stop me from feeling the lack of a real father in my life, especially on school sports days when my mother had to turn up on her own, but Uncle was the next best thing.

He and his wife, my mother’s foster sister, had generously given my mother and me a permanent home under their roof, so he was a constant and reassuring presence in the house.Uncle was, in fact, old enough to be a grandfather figure. When raising his two sons alone after the death of his first wife, he had been a strict, old-school disciplinarian, though never a cruel one. Yet he mellowed a lot in his later, less pressured years, and his essential kindness came through – and I got the benefit of that as a child when he took me, the daughter he never had, to museums, art galleries, bookshops and libraries.

Although he was no pushover, he was patient – life had taught him to be. And the enlightened views he had developed from decades of reading as widely as possible made him way ahead of his time. He was a protector in the very best sense of offering support to a woman without wanting to turn her into a surrendered wife.

So I always wanted to marry someone like him, an older man with an open mind. It seemed the best of both worlds, and it was no accident that I married a man 22 years older than me not long after Uncle’s death. Like Uncle, my husband was a male feminist: he liked strong women and couldn’t stand what he called the “hausfrau” type. We had 32 wonderfully happy years together until he too died. Now 62, I repeat the pattern of unashamedly searching for a father figure – my current boyfriend is 14 years older than me.

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In my experience, older men don’t feel threatened by independent women, so they don’t feel the need to put them down in the way so many guys of my own age do. They don’t give off that whiff of condescension that every woman will encounter at some stage from a competitive man of her own generation. Secure in their identity and their own achievements,older men don’t need to prove anything, so they have the confidence to enjoy female company – and there is nothing like an older man for spoiling a woman and making her feel utterly special. They tend to be worldly, gallant, thoughtful – and, if I’m honest, also grateful that a younger woman has looked their way.

Call me shallow, but it does wonders for my self-esteem. Older men can also feel the age gap gives them an advantage, of course, but it works both ways. The two generations can teach each other a lot, from my rock-and-pop tastes to his jazz and vintage wines.

Just to be clear, I’ve never looked for a rich sugar-daddy. The men who have attracted me have not been wealthy. So my motives are not mercenary. I simply love men with a knowledge of the world. Perhaps it’s all down to my over-indulged inner child, as the shrinks would say. There is nothing like an older partner for making you feel forever young, despite the crow’s feet. In their eyes, you always will be.

The big downside, of course, to having an older lover/husband is that you will probably outlive them. In their declining years, you may have to become their nurse. My boyfriend has not been well recently and I’ve had to fight off morbid thoughts. Yet better to have loved and lost than never to have had that special relationship at all.

As I age myself, the available supply of my ideal older man will inevitably run dry. Yet, until then, why stop seeking out what’s rare and wonderful?